They Should Give Gold Medals for This, Really

Thirty-eight-year-old British swimmer Mark Forster – the breakthrough star of the 29th Olympiad, IMHO (who cares if he was in and out of the pool) – has paid tribute to fellow Brit David Beckham by re-creating the footballer’s iconic pose as an Emporio Armani Underwear model.

Explaining his decision to strip down, Foster said: “I’m so used to swimming in a pair of trunks and being in next to nothing anyway, stripping to a pair of underpants isn’t a major issue for me. But I don’t see myself as a heartthrob [I do!] – I’m just me.”

Makes me wanna put on some award-winning Ballet Russe sheer lipstick and fly across the pond.

Foster is currently appearing in Strictly Come Dancing, the U.K.’s version of Dancing with the Stars.

Hello, YouTube.

Photo: Towleroad.com.

Update: Hey, Mark Foster, this was lovely, but I can’t wait to see you move.

In and Out of the Pool

My week’s obsession, British swimmer Mark Foster, is done in Beijing.

Foz didn’t make it through to the semi-finals of the 50-meter free style after finishing sixth in his heat yesterday. After 22.35 seconds, the 38-year-old’s Olympic dreams – Beijing marks his fifth Olympiad, by the way – were over.

“I was more nervous than I have ever been ahead of the heat and was disappointed with the way I swam, but in my heart-of-hearts I knew I wasn’t capable of winning a medal,” Foster blogged for the Telegraph.

“In the warm-up I felt awful, in the sprints I felt OK, but back in there I was just awful.

“I’ve enjoyed [Beijing] more than any other Olympics. It was a wonderful honour to carry the flag at the opening ceremony. It was possibly the Olympic medal for me I’ve always missed, but I’ve been waiting to get out there and race.”

You made not have medaled, but you won a fan or four.

Photo: Olympics.org.uk.

Let the Games Begin

The Beijing 2008 Olympics Games begin at 8 p.m. tonight and I am so watching the opening ceremony.

It promises to be spectacular.

But…Free Tibet!

Photo: USAToday.com.

Update 1: Lopez Lomong, yours is one inspiring story.

Update 2: Thank you, Great Britain, for your flag-bearer, swimmer Mark Foster. Thank you very much. I mean...hello.

Update 3: And those fireworks!

Update 4: About those fireworks…. Beijing organizers have confirmed that some of the fireworks displayed during the opening ceremony featured pre-recorded footage.

Well…I’m not wondering if they do private parties anymore.

More of Becks in Less

Emporio Armani Underwear’s MVP David Beckham is stripping down again.

The company unveiled the soccer star’s newest underwear ad in London today. Needless to say – but here I go, anyway – thousands gathered to meet Beckham and check out his nearly-nude photo, which graces the entire façade of the Selfridges department store.

Summer just got hotter, but next time, make it a color photo à la Mark Foster.

Photo: WXYZ.com.

Update: What a lucky rope! Click here for more Becks.

I Could Die!

And for my first post of 2009....

I met British swimmer Mark Foster tonight, about two hours ago.

I ran into him at Lime on South Beach, and OMG: Our tables were right next to each other, so I just had to go over to him to ask for his salt shaker, you know. (What! – I like my quesadillas salty.)

I found out this may not be the only time I shall ran into him in town (yay!), and well...that’s all (for now!).

Photo: DailyMail.co.uk.

Just Like Madonna, I’m Having a Case of the Anglophilias

Let me go with the Union Jack theme, alright. I promise by tonight I will have changed my tune.

I def want to go to London (in 2012) I’m sooo into British swimmer Mark Foster, as it’s become obvious, even more now that I’ve heard Lily Allen’s buzz-building “F--- You Very Much.”

Hey – I say that all that time. I should’ve put it into song, I guess.

Glad to hear Allen’s coming back from her too-long visit to Troublesville sounding good.

Photo: Babble.com.

Swim

Can someone please tell me if British swimmer Mark Foster has competed at the 29th Olympiad yet…or do I’ve yet to miss him?

And what do you think of NBCOlympics.com’s Ab Fab: Guess the Swimmer gallery?

I know, right.

Photo: Telegraph.co.uk.

Conflict As the Solution

God of Carnage was a very successful play on Broadway a couple of years ago. It starred James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels, and Hope Davis, and went on to win the Tony for best play.

Now, it’s a film, and a buzzy one at that.

Starring Academy Award winners Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, and nominee John C. Reilly, Carnage is Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s story about two couples who come together to discuss the recent brawl their two sons recently had at school.

Check out the trailer here. It’s good stuff. And mark your calendar for...some time this fall for this date (opening date is still TBD).

Photo: AltFG.com.

The Soldier Thing Is...

I so definitely want to see Lone Survivor now.

And all of my newfound enthusiasm can be credited to Mark Wahlberg’s big mouth.

Evidently, the actor caused a ruckus earlier this week when he called out some of his peers for likening the prep work they do for projects to going to war. I guess he was asked about his own training for the Peter Berg-directed based-on-a-true-story tale of four Navy SEALs on an ill-fated covert mission in Afghanistan back in 2005.

“I don’t give a f--- what you did,” Wahlberg said at the movie’s AFI Fest premiere, in a not-so-thinly veiled jab at hyperbole-prone actors. “You don’t do what these guys did. How f---ing dare you.”

The blogosphere zeroed in on Tom Cruise as the target of the Wahl-rant, although the Fighter star has denied having anyone in particular in mind when he said what he said. Regardless, I kinda love that Wahlberg let it rip.

Lone Survivor, which co-stars Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch, Alexander Ludwig, and Eric Bana, will be out on Dec. 27 before going wide on Jan. 10.

Photo: Indiewire.com.

The Gray Woman?

Well here’s a trend I know the women in Hollywood are loving: The switching of leading roles from male to female.

It happened with the upcoming Our Brand Is Crisis, which went from a project starring George Clooney to one headlined by Sandra Bullock and only produced by Clooney. It’s totally something that has happened before (Angelina Jolie’s Salt was originally meant for a dude, as was Jodie Foster’s Flightplan – for Tom Cruise and Sean Penn, respectively), and something that seems to be picking up steam.

Hollywood’s latest switcheroo? Turning The Gray Man – a project once earmarked for Brad Pitt – into The Gray Woman, essentially, now that Charlize Theron is showing interest.

An adaptation of the Mark Greaney novel by that title, the movie will be a thriller centering on an expert CIA operative-turned-assassin who must evade some nasty adversaries as he she strives to saves the lives of the daughters she didn’t know she had.

OK. That last part will have to change somehow, but it’s totally doable. Maybe Theron will have to save the lives of a pair of now-grown twins she gave up for adoption many years ago or something like that. But see? Totally doable.

And I’m not even a Hollywood exec!

Photo: WMagazine.com.

The X Factor

Ding dong, the summer movie season is done.

Thank Gwyneth.

Don’t get it twisted: I very much enjoyed taking sides in the two superhero civil wars that we got to witness (Team Marvel, though). It was a blast to see Ralph Fiennes create A Bigger Splash in a supporting turn none of us should soon forget; ditto to watch how director Justin Lin reset things to take Star Trek Beyond (and how he set certain shots to create a surprisingly immersive experience). I also wholeheartedly bought Andy Samberg as a Popstar, then, in rapid fashion, forgot all about his Never Stop Never Stopping.

Oh yes – I’m doing a fire sale. Why? Because I honestly didn’t feel like the lot of the stuff I saw was worth spending hours thinking up s--- to write for the sake of writing, knowwhatImean. Except for A Bigger Splash, but oh well...hindsight.

I mean, Independence Day: Resurgence? It was big and loud and unfocused, and made me think of the original as grand cinema. And I guess The Nice Guys were kinda cool (OK, the chemistry between Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling was pretty palpable, but their story meandered and went off the rails during the second half, no?), and The Shallows was an intensely serviceable time at the beach, albeit one that jarringly flirted with the absurd and the pandering.

Blake Lively’s lean girl-against-shark yarn fared infinitely better than the uninventive, unengaging hodgepodge that was Suicide Squad, though, and she did kinda outshine Woody Allen’s stunningly photographed, yet hopeless Café Society. Only bright spot in that whole mess.

Speaking of quote-unquote grown-up options – almost done with this train of thought – Meryl Streep’s bad Florence Foster Jenkins singing was piercingly divine, but I am not about to sing her praises in the name of a potential record 20th Academy Award nod. Not until the heavy hitters of fall and the Decemberists make their mark, anyway.

All this to say you gotta catch Sully.

Politics aside, Clint Eastwood generally succeeds at making audiences use their heads to think about what they’re seeing and their hearts to feel for whom they’re watching up on that silver screen, and he excels at it with his take on the Jan. 15, 2009, “Miracle on the Hudson.” You know, the real-life feat of heroism whereby Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger – portrayed here by Tom Hanks, in a performance worthy of, at least, an Oscar nod – and how he incredibly saved the lives of the 154 other people on board his LaGuardia-to-Charlotte US Airways flight, after a flock of geese knocked out both of the plane’s engines.

Eastwood takes the subtle, yet informatively propulsive script by Todd Komarnicki (who based it on Highest Duty, the tome co-authored by Sullenberger in the ordeal’s aftermath), and delivers a film that doesn’t give up all the goodies you wanna see upfront à la Flight. Instead, the filmmaker parses the profound enormity of Sully & Co.’s circumstances – btw, Aaron Eckhart is pretty stellar in a supporting turn as Jeff Skiles, Sullenberger’s first officer and co-pilot that fateful day – with the help of a non-linear narrative that clues us in on the career pilot’s earned prowess...and ramps up to a sustained what-happened-up-in-the-air moment.

Sully is quietly engrossing. I mean, it’s quite som’in’ to go into a movie about a plane crash and see nothing like, explode. And that’s what makes this film special because it truly is a story about survival, as well as an essential account of American compassion. When Sullenberger’s plane hit the frigid Hudson, anyone who could sprung into action to get the frightened passengers to warm safety.

No joke, I got seriously misty watching the sequence because it was as if I was watching America embrace those who need it most.

Now, Sully is a film. One that beautifully captures a deed worth celebrating, and that shines a light on the investigation that inevitable had to follow the incident. The National Transportation Safety Board, as embodied by a hardass Mike O’Malley and a smug Jamey Sheridan, is the antagonist here – but y’ know, those guys, the real-life ones, they were doing their job...so I use the word with a caveat. Eastwood certainly seems to have gone to great lengths not to vilify them, so, in that regard, it all comes down to Hanks, and the actor doesn’t go for the jugular.

Not his style.

The two-time Oscar winner does portray Sullenberger with the utmost dignity, and if you think that he is taking some pleasure when the questioning of his actions comes to a head, well then, perhaps, that’s on you. However, what I will put on Eastwood and Komarnicki is not finding a more interesting use for Laura Linney, a three-time Oscar nominee, who, as Lorraine Sullenberger, only can prop up Hanks’ performance via heartfelt phone conversations.

There also was an observation I wanted to make about Eastwood’s treatment of the media circus that ensued at the time – nearly imperceptible jabs I may have imagined, to be honest – but that would be taking more away from Sully, and that man deserves that this particular moment be all about him because without him, we’d be having a much different discussion. (But Eastwood has gone out there and talked to chairs for the media-thirsty GOP, so...look out.) And I will say two more things.

First, we need more movies like this one. Too often we get movies about wartime heroes (like Eastwood’s own American Sniper), and those can be awesome, but they always involve death. This one’s about life.

Second, maybe, now the director and Hanks can find a project on which they can reunite with Linney and prop her up, for a change?

Just a thought.

My Rating ***1/2

Photo: HollywoodReporter.com.

A Different Kind of Warrior

Newcomer Alexander Ludwig is still feeling the need for battle.

The young Hunger Games actor is joining Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch, and Eric Bana in Peter Berg’s Lone Survivor.

Ludwig will play a soldier on a covert mission in Afghanistan in 2005 that goes all kinds of wrong in the project based on the true story of Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell.

Not bad, not bad.... Climb that A-List, kid.

Photo: Alexander-Ludwig.us.

Working on the Sparkle

Steve Carell and Tina Fey make a super-cute couple.

Of course, the NBC stars (he of The Office, she of 30 Rock) are married to other people in real life, but that didn’t preclude them from coupling up on the big screen for the slightly unevent but totally cute and amiable comedy Date Night.

The funny two play Phil and Claire Foster, a sensible, loving couple from suburban New Jersey. They are Mr. and Mrs. Everyman, and they seem to have it all: good jobs with their struggles (check!), nice house (double-check!), two rambunctious kids (got those, too) – the American Dream works.

But they don’t have romance. Not that much, anyway.

The Fosters try to maintain a sort of routine-breaking weekly date night, though, a by-the-numbers exercise in keeping the fire alive involving the same weekly night out at the same local restaurant.

It’s hardly exciting, but they make it work, y’ know.

The couple is exhausted, though, so one day, after Claire decides to dress up in a beautiful blue dress (that Fey wears exquisitely, btw), Phil surprises her (only after remembering it’s grown-ups night out) and together they venture into Manhattan to dine in the city’s hottest new restaurant (without a reservation, the silly rabbits).

Hoping to be seated sometime before the clock strikes midnight and they turn into responsible adults again, they take a no-show couple’s reservations...and then their evening really gets goin’. The Fosters become the Tripplehorns, and they soon discover that their alter egos aren’t necessarily upstanding citizens – they’re a couple of petty thieves who are being hunted down by a pair of corrupt cops for having stolen property from some very dangerous people.

Before they can go all “Uh oh,” Phil and Claire are forced on the run, realizing along the way that their out-of-the-ordinary date night just got extra-extraordinary as they embark on a wild and dangerous series of crazy adventures to save their lives.

Well, they got what they wanted: fun.

And you know what, so will you if you watch this one.

Yeah, it’s not an LOL-type of movie – and you may not laugh at every joke or funny stich. But it’s quite entertaining (spotting the cameos along should keep you busy, not to mention staring at Mark Wahlberg’s chest, which should’ve gotten a credit of its own).

Carell and Fey, especially, are terrific: they combine harriedness (their morning ritual, their unspicy sex life, for instance) with hilarity (the Fosters put on the most awkward pole dance ever at one point) to great effect...and they remain committed to making us laugh, like when they share the longest kiss I’ve seen on screen.

My Rating ***

Photo: 20th Century Fox.